Born in a Presbyterian mission hospital on the Navajo Reservation, Nicolas Shumway was raised in St. Johns, Arizona, a small farming and ranching community in the northeastern corner of the state. His father owned a garage and tire shop, and his mother taught grade school music. His first name—Nicolas without an “h”—follows the French spelling which his mother got from a popular violin method book written by a Frenchman, Nicolas Laoureux. The name Shumway is a misspelled French name that was originally Chamois, also the name of a wild mountain goat that lives in the French Alps.
At an early age—five or six years old? —Nicolas realized that he was different from other boys. As the years progressed, he recognized that he was homosexual. Processing this fact while determining how it would affect his relationship to his family, his community, and the LDS Church was a major issue during his teens and twenties. But he soon realized that being gay gave him entrance to a large social, religious, and political community from which emerged literally hundreds of friends across the globe. Best of all, it led him to his husband and life partner, Robert Mayott. In 2023, Robert and Nicolas celebrated the thirty-sixth anniversary of the day they met and the tenth anniversary of their marriage.
Graduating with highest honors, Shumway received his BA degree from BYU in 1969 with majors in Spanish and music and a minor in French. His time at BYU was interrupted by a two-year mission for the LDS Church in Mexico. Due to growing doubts about the Mormon message, Shumway was not an especially good missionary, particularly because he found Mexicans more interesting than what he was supposed to teach them. Still, he considers the mission a pivotal experience which allowed him to become fluent in Spanish and helped pave the way to his academic career as a professor of Latin American Studies.
He completed his MA in 1971 and PhD in 1976 at UCLA with concentrations in Hispanic literatures and linguistics. After receiving his doctorate, he taught at Pepperdine University, Indiana University Northwest, Yale University, The University of Texas at Austin, and Rice University. At Yale he chaired the Latin American Studies program for three years and directed the Spanish language program for eight. In 1987, he received tenure at Yale and was promoted to Full Professor in 1992. After fourteen years at Yale, in 1993, he accepted an appointment at The University of Texas at Austin as the Tomás Rivera Regents Professor of Spanish. Two years later he became director of the UT Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, a position he held for eleven years. From 2008 to 2010, he served as Chair of the UT Department of Spanish and Portuguese. In July of 2010, he became Dean of Humanities and the Frances Moody Newman Professor of Humanities at Rice University, a position he held for seven years. He retired from Rice University in July of 2020 and now holds the title of Frances Moody Newman Professor of Spanish, Emeritus. He continues writing and lecturing, primarily in the Rice University Glasscock School of Continuing Education.
His scholarship explores Latin-American history and culture with particular emphasis on Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. He has also written on advocacy and politics in the foreign-language classroom, and on the ideologies of Hispanism. His best known book, The Invention of Argentina (University of California Press, 1991) was selected by The New York Times as “a notable book of the year” and received Honorable Mention for the Bryce Wood Book Award of the Latin American Studies Association in 1992. EMECE Editores, Buenos Aires, published a Spanish translation of the book in 1993. An extensive revision of the book appeared in Spanish in 2005. The University of São Paulo Press published a Portuguese translation in 2009. The book is currently available in all three languages and as an e-book in both English and Spanish. In 2023, The Economist magazine recommended the book as one of seven essential titles to read about Argentina.
In 2012, he published with EMECE/Planeta in Buenos Aires Historia Personal De Una Pasión Argentina. Written in Spanish, the book consists of a series of essays, the two lengthiest ones being an autobiographical account of Shumway’s dialogue with Argentina and Argentine culture since first visiting the country in 1975, and the second, an exploration of Argentine liberalism and its detractors.
In Fall of 2013, the Universidad de San Pablo in Tucumán, Argentina awarded him an honorary doctoral degree in recognition of his scholarly work on Argentina. Shumway is also the author of a successful Spanish language textbook, Español en Español, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. The textbook went through four editions—1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996. The first edition was co-authored with David Forbes. Shumway is the sole author of the last three editions.
Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Shumway has held visiting appointments at the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil and at two Argentine universities, the Universidad de San Andrés and the Universidad Torcuato di Tella, both in Buenos Aires. Shumway has received two Fulbright appointments, one as a Researcher/ Teacher in Brazil and another as a Senior Specialist in American Studies. A popular speaker, he has lectured at universities throughout the Americas, Europe and China, and has several times been featured as a speaker by the Houston World Affairs Council and the Houston Forum. In 2013, the Universidad de San Pablo-Tucumán awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his work on Argentina.
Throughout his forty-five-year teaching career, he has gained wide recognition as a leader in international studies and foreign-language education. Prominent in professional circles, he has served on multiple occasions on selection panels for the National Endowment of the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation. For four years, he served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association.
In addition to his academic work, Shumway has pursued a parallel career in music. Singer, pianist, and organist, he has held staff positions in several churches, including nine years as organist and choir director at First Presbyterian Church of New Haven.
Also in New Haven, Shumway directed for three years The Redeemer Oratorio Choir. Although partially supported by Church of the Redeemer, the Oratorio Choir was a community organization consisting of around fifty singers. Works performed include Bach’s Magnificat, Rossini’s Messe Solennelle, Brahms’ German Requiem, and Poulenc's Gloria. He has also sung with several professional choirs including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Roger Wagner Chorale, Music of the Baroque of Chicago, CONCORA and Pro-Arte Singers (both located in Connecticut), Conspirare of Austin, and the Bach Society of Houston. An accomplished oratorio singer, he has sung solo bass roles in performances of J.S. Bach’s B-Minor Mass, St. Matthew Passion, and numerous cantatas. Other solo roles include Mozart’s Requiem Mass and Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabaeus. He has also appeared as a pianist/accompanist for several violinists, playing works by Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart.
